Half Past Seven at the Hog's Head
by MagikCat
Summary: Auror Susan Bones never knew why Marcus Flint had contacted headquarters three months ago, but he had proven to be an invaluable asset to her case.


_Author's Notes: __I've come to adore this pairing, so while this particular piece is through I think I'll continue their journey. Thanks to mollywheezy and maglevniac for betaing. _

Rain pounded noisily on the bright yellow umbrella Susan Bones held as she watched the sign of the Hog's Head sway slightly in the wind. The Auror gave a deep sigh. She disliked meeting at this shabby old pub—it was dark, it smelled, and never seemed warm enough. Susan respected Aberforth very much, but never understood why he had not sold this place ages ago (especially if the rumors of a generous monetary gift from the Ministry for "outstanding bravery" were true). However, for reasons she could certainly empathize with, it was her informant's preferred meeting place.

Susan shook her head. Really, what would the Aurors think if they heard her complaining about an important meeting because the _smell_ bothered her? She already had to fight twice as hard to prove she was good enough—even to the other women. Immediately the faces of her co-workers chortling rose like a tidal wave in her mind. It was all the incentive she needed to close her umbrella and push determinedly through the door.

The weather had made the smell worse than ever, and she quickly opened her mouth slightly to keep from breathing through her nose. At least he had put up floating candles to give the pub more light, she thought. Scanning across the tables she saw it was empty but for a couple of patrons who had been brave enough to battle the rain for a drink. Aberforth looked up from the bar and, recognizing her, jerked his head to a corner. Susan nodded in thanks.

Unsurprising to her, there was a figure hunched over the table, cradling a bottle of firewhiskey in his hands. He wore a black Muggle jumper with the hood pulled up hide his face and leather gloves. Susan only knew it was a 'he' because she had met him here every week for nearly three months.

"Hello, _Toby_." She kept her voice low as she pulled out the chair in front of him.

Marcus Flint jumped in his chair. "Jesus Christ! Haven' I told youse not t'do that?" he hissed, slipping out of his usual RP.

Susan rolled her eyes, placing her umbrella on the floor. "A bit twitchy today, aren't you, Toby? Ugh. Have I ever mentioned what a ghastly codename that is?"

"Often." She couldn't see his face, but she could've sworn there was something like amusement in his voice. She must've imagined it, however, because when he spoke again it was with his usual hardened tone. "Besides, I didn't hear _you_ come up with anything when we met."

"Is it too late to change it?" she asked with a grin. "I was thinking of calling you 'Ringo'."

"_Ringo_?"

"C'mon – ever heard of the Beatles?" she demanded. When he said nothing, she went on, "When you slip into a Scouse accent it reminds me of them, and Ringo was my mum's favorite."

He snorted. "Muggle shite, is it?"

"Don't call their music shite," she said firmly, rolling her eyes again. "But, look, I didn't come here to argue." As if to prove this to him, she pulled out a pumpkin pastry from her pocket and slid it over to him. "Here. I bet you don't get a lot of these at that warehouse."

"No," Marcus confessed. He opened the pastry package and ate it under his hood. "Thanks."

"Need to keep my best informant happy," she said simply, taking a pumpkin pastry herself.

If she were honest, Susan would admit she had grown rather fond of Marcus—at least as much as she had allowed herself to be. She was an Auror, after all, and under normal circumstances she would have been obligated to arrest him. Even months later she was never quite certain what caused the Slytherin to contact Auror headquarters in the first place. By fate, she had been the only one to think it was worth meeting him at the time, and got some satisfaction that heFi had proved to be an invaluable asset.

Speaking of which. . . . "What did you want to meet about? You said it would be worth my while."

Marcus took a drink before answering. "We're getting a new shipment of fake Windswipe and Firebolt brooms brought in tomorrow night. Rumors have it Urquhart himself might be there to oversee it."

Susan nearly dropped her pastry. "He'll be there? Are you sure?" Eallair Urquhart was the UK's leading producer in counterfeits, who made a near fortune on cheap and sometimes dangerous imitations of wizarding items to sell on the Black Market. In the six months she had spent building a case against him, she had found his work on everything from potions to brooms to Dark Arts detectors.

"That's just rumors—I won't bet my right hand on it."

She kept her face blank, but her insides were buzzing with excitement. "If we could catch him in the act—"

"You'll have enough evidence for an arrest and trial."

She leaned even closer, afraid she might mishear a single detail. "What time?"

"Eleven-thirty. They'll be done by midnight."

"That gives us"—she checked her watch—"twenty-eight hours to get a team together and a plan of attack. I'm going send a message to Harry—"

"Bones?" he interrupted before she could get up from her chair. "This goes well . . . you'll keep our agreement, right?"

Susan stopped, surprised at his gruff tone. Did he think she wouldn't? "Of course. You'll get full immunity and placement into our protection."

"How does that work?"

"We put you in a safe house until the trial. Once it's over, we'll cast some disguising spells over you and change your name, location, job, et cetera. For all sense and purpose, you'll have a new life until such time as it's deemed safe."

"Will I have to testify in court?"

Susan hesitated. She didn't want to lie, but what if the truth gave him cold feet? "I don't know," she finally admitted. "That's up to the prosecution. Hermione Granger is known for requiring an ironclad case to the point of obsession. But . . . maybe I can convince her not to make you."

A sigh, part-resignation and part-relief, came from under the hood. "All right. Best I can hope for."

"You'll need to be there tomorrow," she went on. "If we don't catch Urquhart and you're not there—"

"—he'll suspect it was me," he finished.

"Can you wear something so I can point you out to the other Aurors?"

He paused for a moment. "Will a Grieving Griffin shirt do?" he asked finally.

Susan lifted her eyebrows. "The Grieving Griffins? Aren't they that band with the angsty lyrics and the bad hair?"

"Ere! They got me through me—_my_—last year of Hogwarts," he said defensively.

"Okay, okay." She held back a smile. "Assuming all goes well, we'll probably stage your arrest, but you'll be taken straight to Auror Headquarters."

"What if I end up in Azkaban?"

"Then Harry will make sure the arresting Auror is on Ministry security duty for a week."

"Ministry security duty?"

"My partner makes it worse than it sounds, trust me."

He said nothing. Susan wished she could say that she understood how much danger he had put himself in by trusting her. That she would do everything to keep him safe. But she couldn't; years of training had engrained in her that maintaining distance would keep the two of them alive. Not for the first time, she felt uneasy that she had allowed their relationship to become more comfortable than it should. It wasn't her job to be his friend—she knew it and he must, too.

Yet, she couldn't help herself from adding, "It'll be fine. I promise."

Marcus stayed silent for a moment, and then nodded. "Well," he said, shrugging, "if there's one thing I've learned from you, Bones, it's that your word is worth having."

She turned away, feeling both touched and angry with herself. "Well, I suppose that's good to know," she said, a tad briskly. _Keep a distance, Bones._

"I say this is worth another round," Marcus said firmly, getting up. "Butterbeer?"

"You don't have to—"

"Bones, it's a drink, not an Unbreakable Vow. D'you want a butterbeer?"

She sighed. "I'm still on duty, so I suppose so."

When he returned, she cast around for something to distract herself from the rising feeling of unease, before settling on the question that had nagged her for ages. "You know, you've never told me why."

"Why what?"

"Why you owled the Aurors in the first place. If this is our last meeting, I figure I might as well find out what makes a Slytherin risk his neck."

He bowed his head in acknowledgement of her question, though it was a few moments before he answered. "The truth is. . . ." He stopped, tapping his drink thoughtfully. "Y'know what, Bones? You may have a point."

Susan's interest rose. "Really?"

"I think so." He took another drink. "I haven' shown anyone outside the warehouse, but I'm gettin' sick of tryin' to hide it. And youse—_you_—have always been decent to me." He looked around the pub carefully. The other patrons had gone home, and it was only the two of them and Alberforth. "But I warn you, it's not pretty."

Susan raised eyebrow. "What, do you think I'll run from the pub screaming?"

Marcus only gave a deep sigh, and with a determined air lifted his hands to pull his hood down. Her eyes widened and she barely kept herself from gasping.

One half of his face was an unblemished olive color, and he had a tough, square jaw and a rather severe-looking nose. It was not handsome, but it did not fit Harry's description of a troll, either. However, the other side . . . the other side was swollen unevenly, like clay that had not been smoothed over properly, with angry red and dark blotches that ran down his hairline to the neck of his sweater. The dark brown eye on the smooth side stared at her defiantly under a thick black eyebrow—the lid on the other appeared to have been fused closed, and it dipped inward unnaturally. On his damaged side, his lips were all but gone, as though they had been stretched into non-existence, though both sides were pressed into a thin line. Miraculously, he managed to keep his coarse black hair in place throughout most of his head, though he had cropped it a mere inch from his scalp. Susan had only seen something like this once or twice before, and never on a living victim.

"Potion Burn?" she asked, finally.

He nodded, and lifted his hood back over his head. For the first time, he kept his face lifted enough for her to still see underneath, and he seemed to be watching her carefully.

Susan swallowed, torn by nausea and sympathy. "What . . . what happened?"

"Four months ago, Urquhart's brat son let off a Weasley's Wizard Wiz Bang near a cauldron full of half-finished Extra-Duty Scouring Solution." He took another long drink. "Little shite thought it was _funny_."

The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable, and she found herself unable to take her eyes off him. "I take it you've never been to St. Mungo's?"

"You think I'd look like this if I did?" he demanded. "I signed a contract, y'see. Only the healer on site can help with injuries, and he's 'bout as good a healer as I am a dragon tamer. "

Susan struggled to find something to say. What _could_ she say? "I'm sorry," seemed hollow. "You're doing the right thing," bordered on sanctimonious. "We'll bring these men to justice" – what was she, a Gryffindor?

After a moment, she finally settled for a low, "Fuck."

His dark eyebrow rose up. "I s'pose that's a better reply than normal."

She paused, then ventured slowly, "So, putting your life in danger like this . . . it's revenge for doing this to you?"

Marcus seemed to take this as an accusation and his gaze hardened. "I didn' just get a pretty little scar like yeh partner, Bones." He took another drink. She couldn't tell whether it was the alcohol or his emotions that was causing his accent to travel farther north. "And believe it or not, it's not 'cause of vanity."

"I don't understand."

He laughed humourlessly. "C'mon, Bones—stop playin' the fool. What boss is gonna hire the creature who looks like sumpin' the devil spat up from hell? That gives me two options: spend the rest of me life liftin' the bastard's crates like me dad . . . or use what I have to brin' him down." He gave Susan another defiant stare. "So that's why I sent that owl. You and you—your partner may not approve, but it's gettin' us both what we want so I think we should both be happy 'bout that."

Something told her there was more to this than he was letting on, but she reminded herself again that it wasn't her business. "All right, then, I just wondered." When he blinked, as though expecting more, she felt safe in adding, "But . . . you know it won't make you feel better."

He stared at her. "What?"

"You can make sure they're in jail, burn their warehouse, take a piss in their face – but you'll still wake up every morning the same." She sighed. "Trust me – I know."

Marcus considered her for a moment, and when he spoke, he had again removed most of the Scouser from his pronunciation. "If you're going to have to disguise me, the scars will have to be gone, yeah?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"What are the chances that the healers could fix me?"

Susan hesitated. His accident had happened a while ago and the damage seemed so severe. . . . "I'm sure they can," she found herself saying.

He breathed out, though his face was entirely blank. Had he known she was being overly optimistic? Or was he relieved?

_It's not your business, Bones._

Quickly trying to change the subject, she looked at her watch. "I better get going if we're going to be ready for tomorrow night."

He nodded.

"There won't be any owls from me, and don't you send one unless it's an emergency. Is that clear?" she said in her best 'Auror Bones' voice.

"Crystal."

"Good." She got up. "Thank you, Marcus."

"Hold up, Bones." Susan paused as she picked up her umbrella. "That safe house—it'll just be me, won't I?"

"Probably."

"Then . . . maybe you can bring me some of them pumpkin pastries? Goodness knows what passes for food among you ministry types."

She blinked. What was he playing at? Of course she couldn't. He would be in hiding and would be of no use to her. Why would either of them want to see each other?

When she didn't answer, he went on. "Look, I'll go mad if I'm shut up in there alone for days on end. And . . . you're all right. For an Auror, anyway.

Susan tried to tell him no, she probably wouldn't. That he would go into hiding and if they did see each other it wouldn't be for years and years. That they weren't friends—they couldn't be. She had her own group of normal friends and would like to keep it that way, thank you.

But she couldn't. Her damned Hufflepuff spirit—the knowledge that she could not desert someone who was asking, in a roundabout way, for her company—overwhelmed her Auror training all at once. "Sure, Marcus—if you'd like."

The candles flickered, and for just a moment she saw just the smooth side of his face. It was almost smiling.


End file.
